Teaching college established to combat classroom 'fads'

A new training college for teachers is to be established by the Prince of
Wales's charity to combat the “fads and fetishes” of the classroom and
create a traditional approach to education, it is announced today.

A new college of teaching is to be established by the Prince's Teaching Institute.Photo: Alamy

The Prince’s Teaching Institute is in talks to create a College of Teaching designed to drive up classroom standards and raise the status of the profession, it emerged.

It is believed that the college will provide on-the-job training for existing teachers, produce research and advise the government on education policy.

The PTI – a charity founded more than a decade ago by the Prince of Wales to encourage teachers to rediscover their passion for subject knowledge – said the college was being established to “provide stability”.

In a report based on discussions with teachers and other education groups, the charity said there were fears that the teaching profession was “prone to ‘fads and fetishes’, which can spread through teaching like wildfire without there being any evidence to support them”.

It follows concerns over the rising influence of initiatives such as the “brain gym”, which encourages children to undertake a range of physical exercises prior to lessons to stimulate the senses, despite high-profile claims that it does not work.

The report also highlighted alarm over the extent to which teaching is put at the whim of the “five-year cycle” of education policy announcements, warning that there was a “need for a common voice and informed counter-weight to government-dictated change”.

Chris Pope, co-director of the PTI, and chairman of a new committee established to drive the plans, said there was a “need for the teaching profession to establish an independent body that will promote and uphold high professional standards in teaching”.

“My personal view is that the world of education has been too dominated by accountability initiatives,” he said.

“Whilst government has an absolutely necessary role to ensure high standards, what the system does lack is something which is focused on aspiration and high standards as opposed to minimum levels of accountability.”

The PTI will publish a consultation document in May looking at the potential scope, functions and costs of the College of Teaching.

The will identify whether the college should be compulsory or voluntary and whether it would administer a “licence to teach”, the PTI said.